


The Loneliness of Third Years

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22342768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: There's a certain loneliness that can exist even when there are people in your life. An emotional isolation. Nozomi and Nico are both familiar with that loneliness.
Relationships: Toujou Nozomi/Yazawa Nico
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	The Loneliness of Third Years

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt by saberin on tumblr: "Distance/Childhood"

It had been a long time since Nozomi was close to someone.

Admitting it was a little painful. After all, she did have a family. Parents. But… she couldn’t honestly claim to be close to them. There were too many nights where she’d tucked herself into bed. Too many birthdays where she’d sat alone with a cake decorated with candles she couldn’t even light, since she’d been taught never to play with matches. Nozomi… didn’t think they hated her. She understood that they were doing important things. That the reason she could live a comfortable life was because they were working hard for their family. She was mature. She was a good girl. She didn’t do anything like act out to get their attention or hate them for not being there. She knew they were doing their best, and didn’t make any trouble for them, and tried to reassure her father that she was okay when they moved, and he gave her that anxious look, searching for face for any faltering in her poker face.

The first time, she hadn’t known to lie yet. She’d been honest about feeling lonely, and missing her friends. So he’s tried to spend a little more time with her. But he couldn’t work less, so he’d slept less, and ended up in the hospital. After that, Nozomi had sworn not to be more of burden. And so she’d lied, and smiled, and pretended, and even if her parents might know she wasn’t really happy, she’d never given them an excuse to push themselves too far again.

But… well, she could hardly to be close to them with a situation like that, could she? When she saw them so little and spent a lot of the time they had together lying about being okay?

There was no one outside her family who she could claim to be close with, either. Shy already and scared of losing someone when she moved away on top of that, she’d drifted from school to school, never really getting close to anyone.

Until highschool.

Finally, her father’s work had settled down in location, if not in workload, and Nozomi found out that she’d be able to stay in Otonokizaka until she graduated. That should have been freeing. Without having to worry about leaving, she should have been able to make friends without worry.

She… didn’t.

Old habits didn’t die so easily. She still secluded herself, and was still too shy.

And then she found Eli. Finally, she’d managed to make a friend! Sure, they weren’t always totally open with each other, but that was fine! They were friends, and surely, now that she wasn’t totally isolated, she could be friends with all sorts of people.

...It didn’t work out that way.

Ah, she felt bad putting it like that. Eli _was_ dear to her, of course. She was a precious friend, and finally, finally, Nozomi had someone who she felt close to, who she could share her life with. But… she was greedier than she’d realized. She wasn’t happy with just that. It wasn’t that she wanted to _popular_ , exactly, but… in her lonely fantasies, she’d imagined herself surrounded by friends. A group. She loved having Eli as a friend, but… the two of them were now just isolated with each other instead of on their own. They still were distant with everyone else, set apart from the class.

But whenever she saw someone else that she might be able to get along with, she was too afraid to reach out. Afraid of being turned down. Afraid of being a bother.

There was one she regretted in particular. She watched Nico Yazawa struggle, and quietly approved her club’s continued existence, even with only one member. She regretted never reaching out to her. Never helping her directly.

But she was too afraid.

* * *

Nico had lived a happy childhood. Even when her father was alive, they’d never been well off, but they’d been a family. When she thought back on it, she didn’t remember not being able to afford much in the way of cute clothes or toys or fancy meals. She remembered sitting on her father’s lap, she remembered walking hand in hand with her parents, she remembered welcoming her younger siblings into the home and being proud of being able to help to take care of them.

She’d always had plenty of people she was close to. That never stopped being true, but at some point it became… different.

First, her father died. Because of that, her mother started working late more often. She still spent time with Nico, and Nico never felt abandoned or unloved. And she still was proud and happy to help take care of the other children. But it was… different now. She wasn’t a child being coddled at home. She was a caretaker, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children. She didn’t mind it, and she was glad to help mama however she could. But there was a fracture in that relationship now. A hairline crack. “Mama needs me to help”, rather than “mama is always there for me”. It didn’t make them love each other any less. But it put a certain distance between them sometimes.

When Nico had trouble at school, she didn’t want to trouble mama with it. When she was frustrated and scared and in despair over her crumbling club, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her siblings.

So even though she was surrounded by people that she loved, and was happy and warm in the arms of her family, there was times where she felt so terribly, terribly, alone. All by herself, sitting in a darkened club room, haunted by her failure.

She was too proud to ask anyone for help. Too stubborn to admit that she couldn’t make it work. So she fought as hard as she could, recruited as much as the school would let her. None of it made a different. But it didn’t go completely ignored, at least. Nico noticed there was something who saw her. The student council vice president saw her recruitment. Saw her effort. Watched her from afar, always silent. Nico’s club being abolished was never brought up, even though she was the only member left. They didn’t even threaten to take away her clubroom. Maybe it was because they saw that she wasn’t just coasting on her status, and was trying to grow the membership. Or maybe it was pity. Well, that was fine with her. She could use pity. She’d take her sad, pathetic figure passing out fliers in the rain and wring every drop of sympathy of the student council, and use it to build her club.

But maybe, instead of just trying to subtly influence them, she should have approached that lone student council member. Maybe she should have asked Nozomi for help.

But she was too proud.

* * *

For both of them, μ’s was a miracle. It was a dream they held so close finally made real. Nico’s idol club flourished. Nozomi found herself surrounded by noisy, energetic, cheerful friends. The pangs of loneliness in their hearts were swept away, and together they enjoyed a year of joy.

But μ’s was a miracle with a time limit. When the third years graduated, it ended. Those days came to a close.

They didn’t lose everything they’d gained, of course. They still had friends. Nico was still established as an idol, something she fully intended to exploit to its fullest when she finished university. But even if they managed to meet up with the other members sometimes, it wasn’t the same. Daily practice giving way to weekly at best meetups… slowly, surely, a dark little shard of loneliness began to creep back into their lives.

It all changed in a single night.

They were heading home after a weekend meetup with the other members. Nothing so convenient as them living in the same apartment building had come up when they picked schools- they didn’t even go to the same university, given the wide gap in their grades- but as it happened, they both walked home in the same direction from this particular venue.

“It’s nice to see everyone again, isn’t it Niccochi?” Nozomi said, smiling.

“Well, maybe not _everyone_ ,” Nico grumbled, crossing her arms.

Nozomi giggled, recalling Nico and Maki’s latest argument over nothing. “Oh, you enjoy it.”

“What, fighting with Maki?” She turned her head and made an airy gesture. “Well, I suppose I don’t _hate_ talking to someone who’s honest, at least. She does at least have that as a redeeming quality.”

“Of course,” Nozomi said, stifling another laugh. Maki? Honest with Nico? Hardly. But there was a kernel of truth to the notion. Their fighting was only possible because they were comfortable with each other and didn’t need to hide behind politeness.

They walked in silence for a while before Nico suddenly spoke again.

“...It’s a little lonely without them, isn’t it?” she said.

 _Oh? What would your friends at university think if they heard that, I wonder?_ Nozomi could have made a joke like that. Laughed it off. But when Nico spoke those words, the little black shard in her heart resonated.

“...Yes,” she agreed, quietly. “It really is…”

“At least we still have each other.” Nozomi looked over at Nico in surprise, but Nico was looking away, out over the river.

“Yes,” Nozomi said, smiling as she turned away again. “We do.”

Neither of them said anything. There was no plan involved. But when one reached out to take the other’s hand, they both met halfway, and walked interlinked until the intersection where their paths home diverged.

There was no grand declaration in that moment. No deep feelings revealed. It would be months before Nozomi confessed, and more than a year before Nico suggested that Nozomi move in with her. But in that moment, the piece of loneliness the two of them had shared had been chased away by the warmth of another’s hand. And the distance between them had melted away.


End file.
